Street Fighter still fighting

Capcom pres admits mistakes

Street Fighter, the Japanese Arcade/video game, has already been adapted into numerous animated and live-action movies – the ‘90s version memorably starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.

But while the films, including last year’s deplorable Chris Klein version The Legend Of Chun-Li , have been ignored at best, mauled at worst, Capcom are still keen to expand the movie franchise.

“There’s a book to be written there,” says Christian Svenssion, Capcom pres, about Chun-Li . “This is where I have to be careful. Let’s just say there were a lot of people with different ideas as to what was the best route to take with that movie.

“A path was chosen, a result was had. I think there are some learnings internally that we’ve taken away from that experience.”

Still, he doesn’t think that the movie damaged the Street Fighter ‘brand’ in any way, stating:

“As long as the games are strong, the fans will be there. Certainly, the other part of this is we do have actually very successful uses of Street Fighter IP in comics and merchandise like Snuggies and action figures. I’d look at the movies as an opportunity missed, rather than anything that’s damaged us.”

Which means we can probably expect yet more Capcom-inspired ass-kicking action on the big screen – though it’s debatable if we’ll even notice.